Amy Ruiz tweeted earlier that the city was working on something to help out the gardeners, but no details have come out yet.

http://twitter.com/amyjruiz/status/3291598…

I'm not sure if it's anything different than the already scheduled work party for next Saturday. But I suspect if there's a chance for Adam's team to pick up some hoes sooner than next Saturday, they'll do it.

(Maybe I should have said "rakes")

I'm not much of a gardener, but do you think donating seeds, or a gift certificate for Portland Nursery, would be helpful? If yes, is there somewhere I could send them?

"Adam's team to pick up some hoes"

Like they're not already out on 82nd pickin' up some hoes.

Also, quick question...

What is the mayor's last name?

It isn't Adam.

The sucky thing is the people too intimidated to speak. C'mon neighbors, these are sissy children who destroyed a community garden.
Unless it was some mob hit to , you know, send a message.

Jessica, I'm still waiting for a call from the Community Gardens Program, but I bet they'd be happy to take any donations you'd like to send. Community Gardens Office, 6437 SE Division, Portland, OR 97206.

ditto at Jessica Roberts. I'd love to donate toward the repairs. Should we contact the city?

oops, thanks Patrick!

This definitely pissed me off, and I'm glad to hear more about it, PAC. And speak up, witnesses/neighbors!

That's really shitty. I did some dumb shit as a kid but, fuck, that's pretty low.

WTF

I hope they catch the people responsible, and then The Mercury starts taking donations for their legal defense.

asdf

A public caning, as in China, then making them rebuild and re-plant the garden would be a fitting punishment. And witnesses are afraid of recriminations? From (apparently) a bunch of kids? No guts.

Witnesses are best advised to not speak up at this point. For being such wastes of life that they can't protect/stand up for their community, I hope they get an even worse fate than the vandals. The vandals should pay for every piece of wood broken, for every plant cut, for every tomato smashed, but the neighbors who know something about it and have said nothing for they "are allegedly too intimidated to speak to the police, fearing retribution" should fear retribution at this point. I would hope that when ever it is discovered who knew something about the incident and didn't speak up, the other neighbors destroy their yards and gardens and anything of value to "share the wealth" of such horror.

Sorry for the vent but this is awful and I hope whoever did this pays, and whoever says nothing and knows something meets a worse fate than death for 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (and the ladies too) do nothing'.

Without further victimizing neighbors, please realize that some neighbors/witnesses have very sound, logical fact-based reasons to fear additional retribution, violence, false allegations, and violence above what they have already suffered from neighbors and strangers. Try to empathize with the grief and PTSD about a child's recent death. Try to empathize with the traumas that led to leaving one's country, the dashed hopes, the police brutality and negligence, the fear they feel when men stand outside their house watching their windows, the men with guns, the teens who drive up without lights on and leave one sentry threatening outside their window making a point of watching them while the others steal. How would you feel when you see pairs of men and different groups of women of different races different times leave one standing watch under the roofed playground or hidden in the playstructure at the nearby school or under the tree against the trunk by the school parking lot or in the structure in the park while the other person or persons jump the fence, steal our food, and damage our crops. Try to feel how it is to politely and firmly and appropriately tell children who jumped the fence to stop stealing, and that if they asked nicely they might have some food, only to have the children backtalk, say racist or mean words, run home, and send their fathers back to angrily threaten their lives shouting that the kids said the good neighbor was strangling their kids and that the kids did not vandalize because they were at home? How would you feel when you keep calling and calling and asking for help from the police but they do not answer or do not return calls or do not take reports or if seen in person, act contemptuous and refuse to do anything, but other times police beat or kill and/or falsely accuse the innocent victims? How would you feel if you saw a Mexican woman with long black hair said to be around 45 years old sitting on the school swing, yelling at her kids 11 pm, 12 midnight, 1 am, 2 am, to tell them to jump the fence with [backpacks on] then yell back and forth as the children steal and vandalize at least two times, with the other witnesses not getting directly involved and the past attempts to get the police to help failed, and the past attempts by other gardeners who repeatedly try to get the parks and police to help without result, then awake and find that all the faucets were left running full force to drown some plants and erode the paths? To come out and see three times the garden gates or locks damaged and yet wait weeks for the city to respond, never with the city ever replacing or repairing one lock, and then the city reprimanding you with a wheel-chair-bound old man for wiring shut a gate that was kicked open so it would not close properly? If you have never had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which should be called perpetual on-going trauma escalation, that makes relatively small attacks or threats larger because they bring up the overwhelming emotional and physiological pain and difficulty breathing, the difficulty seeing, the difficulty with nausea and trembling and balance and dizziness, the sensorial distortions, the devastating memories, the sense of overpowering helplessness and urgent desperation, the guilt and shame, the terror.... If you have not suffered this, please be decent and fair and not criticize others. These neighbors have reason to fear the adults and teens, the criminal gangs, the police, the kids. They have to protect their little children, their cars, their income, their reputations, their freedom from deportation or costly legal expenses. They have to protect their health. One dear grandma can barely get any rest or sleep at all, before all this, and even less now. This sleep deprivation is the fastest way to lose physical and mental health, which is why torturers and brainwashers use it. Please, please, realize what it is like to be poor, disabled, powerless, disempowered, contemptuously mistreated, punished for being so caring and brave and helpful. Please realize how you are adding to the problem, not to the solution. Please understand how it feels to see a teen girl last night start a fire on the picnic table, and then have the police who unexpectedly did come, refuse to address the garden vandalism and threats to neighbors' lives. That police response was only after one person kept calling and calling and calling the police and four tv stations and one newspaper were involved. When you go out in the middle of the night in your bathrobe with a flashlight, risking your life to guard the garden from a stranger, then you can talk, when you know other neighbors and the police with all their weapons refuse to help, when you have to live with the neighbors who threaten and hurt your children and grandchildren, who falsely accuse you of crimes yet they get away with crimes, who do so much harm, and when you have found a better solution, then you can criticize. Revenge is not the answer, since every criminal is guilty of self-justification and self-pity angry at those they imagine have wronged them, or who are the weaker ones at hand to lash out in pain. It is the same underlying thought you show here, that is magnified in the next step of contemptuous mean words, mean acts, destruction. The solution is caring community, and you can start here and now being a caring neighbor, a caring part of the solution, with an honest, humble heart and helpful hands. Thus saith MOM.

The five times of senseless wanton violence defies one's sensibility. That is reason enough to worry about the sanity and violence of the criminals who keep getting away with it and the trustworthiness of the Parks and Police employees. Lumber broken and smashed, bamboo poles broken, bean trellises ripped out and dragged into another garden to destroy those other plants, clay pots smashed and thrown about, one tomato alone hacked with what looks like must have been a knife 87 times, nonripe plants ripped out, plants stomped on, the tall artichoke plant hacked and hacked down, corn stalks pulled out and used as bats and golf clubs to destroy other plants, garbage can used a a large bowling ball to knock down corn stalks, shovels stolen to dig up potatoes, a rake swung around and entangled in corn stalks, hoe smashing tomato plants, squash thrown at plants to destroy them, a lock pulled apart, kicking and kicking and kicking another gate latch until the steel is bent, leaving water on full blast, stomping on plants, throwing rocks at plants, kicking and hacking away with tools to destroy and scatter raised mounds recently replanted three times so the soil is in the gravel path, throwing about the fencing materials, breaking nozzles, .... Do you get how it can seem a bit emotionally threatening and mindboggling to the victims? One cannot reason with these criminals who are fearless or bold and so obviously full of hate and self-destruction. Please stop adding to the negativity.

Wow... that was like a good novel. Except the good part. Children dying and PTSD? What? Please explain. Do you know something that could help? THEN HELP! Stop being so selfish. I will personally be donating new seeds and my time and my money to help in any way I can. I will also try to drive by any chance I get in order to catch these vandals in the act.

I would like to donate some paragraph breaks to Caring Mom. I've got plenty, and I am willing to share.

Alternately: tl;dr

Yeah. As terrible as this all is, I stopped reading at about the fourth comma in the first sentence.